Higher Teacher Pay: Justified by the Market and Morals

also online at KELOLand.com!

The good Professor Schaff does well in offering the following reminder yesterday on SD Politics to those of us who advocate higher teacher pay:

Further, Mr. Heidelberger's quick leap from "more funding for education" to "higher pay for teachers" is suspicious. Let me suggest alternative rhetoric. The purpose of high spending on education is to better that education, not to increase teacher pay. Teacher pay is merely a means to an end. Readers should recall that I am in favor of increased pay for teachers. But Mr. Heidelberger would aid his cause by discussing how increased teacher pay is good for education, rather than speaking of increased pay as an end in itself. Further, Mr. Heidelberger calls for "adequate" pay for teachers. "Adequate" is an ambiguous term open to much interpretation by both friend and foe. Let me suggest that rather than advocating for "adequate pay" we should aim at something more concrete, namely pay that is equitable to our neighboring states. I blogged about that here, and here is a report that gives us more data with comparisons for cost of living (go to page 62 of the pdf, which is page 54 of the document) [Jon Schaff, "'Money Is a Good Soldier, Sir, and Will On,'" South Dakota Politics, 2007.11.19].

Always trust a professor for good rhetorical advice along with good evidence.

Professor Schaff does a good job of making "adequate" more concrete in his own argument deflating the myth that South Dakota's cost of living makes up for our lowest-in-the-nation teacher salaries. He also cites teacher ed undergrads who tell him higher pay options in Sioux Falls or out of state will pull them away from rural South Dakota. "Adequate" pay means enough to outbid Minnesota for teacher candidates. The $34K South Dakota pays each of its teachers doesn't meet that criterion.

But let's not stop there. My own experience (nine years in SD HS classrooms, far from a "quick leap") suggests that "adequate" should mean enough for a college graduate to make a living for himself and his family. Call me greedy, but I would think "adequate" compensation for college education and hard work would provide a young teacher with enough money to cover family health insurance, a modest mortgage (how does $542 per month sound?), groceries and gas. I found $31K a year (remember, young teachers, the ones we need to recruit and retain, earn significantly less than the average) wasn't adequate to those demands, at least not as a long-term financial plan.

Of course, our financial plan is open to one obvious criticism: "You've got a wife -- can't she work?" As Amelia Tyagi notes in this Mother Jones interview,

More and more families today are sending both parents into the workforce -- it's become the norm, it's what we now expect. The overwhelming majority of us do it because we think it will make our families more secure. But that's not how things have worked out. By the end of this decade, one in seven families with children will go bankrupt. Having a child is now the single best predictor of bankruptcy, and this holds true even for families with two incomes [interview by Bradford Plumer, "The Two-Income Trap," Mother Jones, 2004.11.08].

Society increasingly expects both parents to work outside the home for pay (and even that extra income doesn't appear to buying us any extra financial security). Maybe our crazy notion of having just one college-educated parent working full-time while the other stays home to raise the child properly is just a foolish artifact of a naïve, irretrievable age. But I might humbly suggest that "adequate" should also mean enough to facilitate a family-values lifestyle choice. The $34K South Dakota pays each of its teachers doesn't meet that criterion.

Dr. Schaff mentions that a good argument for teacher pay should demonstrate "how increased teacher pay is good for education, rather than speaking of increased pay as an end in itself." Perhaps our legislators will only be convinced by such practical arguments, but I humbly suggest we would do well to put deontology over utilitarianism. (Wow -- there are our five-dollar words of the day!) Do we not have a duty to recognize the inherent worth of something? If our teachers are providing the best education in the country, do we not have an obligation to pay them the best wages in the country?

I'm certainly curious about what research might say about the connection between teacher pay and performance, whatever way we might quantify bang for the ed buck. But even if someone could present evidence that our teachers would bust their chops just as hard (and no harder! they'd explode!) for $40K or $50K as they do now for $34K, the moral obligation to pay people what they are worth would remain.

I know talk of "duty" and "moral obligation" isn't very concrete, and I know that folks who believe in market über alles will say the market determines worth. If the market has the final word, then South Dakota's wages suggest that deep down, maybe we don't value education as much as we like to say we do. But maybe the South Dakota market needs a little information not just from Minnesota but also from our morals. It's called putting out money where our mouth is.

"Adequate" teacher pay? I'm still not sure what it is... but the market and morality tell me the status quo isn't it.